Cynthia Nixon defended her iconic “Sex and the City” character from fans after Miranda’s storyline in “And Just Like That” included adultery, political incorrectness, and technical ineptitude. Miranda’s affair with standup comedian Che (Sara Ramirez) and subsequent split from fan favorite Steve (David Eigenberg) also sparked critical debate. Yet Nixon doubled down on supporting the story arc for Miranda in revival series “And Just Like That.” “I think that’s a bizarre reaction,” Nixon told Vogue. “First of all, I think Miranda is brave, and I think Miranda is charging forward. She doesn’t know where she’s going exactly, but she knows she has to go somewhere. And I think that’s always been true of Miranda, right? Miranda’s very smart and she’s very tenacious, but the idea that she’s level-headed — she’s never been level-headed! She’s a loose cannon, a very opinionated loose cannon. She’s always been a bull in a china shop and losing her temper and blowing things up then having to backtrack when she calms down.”
Nixon continued, “I feel like what Miranda does [on ‘And Just Like That’] is incredibly brave. She gives up her very lucrative corporate job and goes back to try and make something more of her life. As Miranda says: We’re not old, we’re 55. I mean, you’re certainly closer to the end than to the beginning. But if you’re not happy with where you are, you still have a lot of time to make a change.” Looking back on the original reception of “Sex and the City,” Nixon drew a comparison to what was then considered radical. “It’s so funny, when you’ve gotten used to something, it seems tame,” Nixon said. “And we were anything but tame. We got a lot of hate in the first few years, you know, and even beyond that. A lot of [people saying]: ‘Women don’t act like this, this is disgusting. These aren’t real women, these are men in drag.’” Questions over whether “SATC” was a feminist show (“Can you be a feminist if you wear high heels?” Nixon added) proved that the HBO series was something “new and different,” much like its new iteration, “AJLT.” “People didn’t always know what to think, and they didn’t always know if they liked what the original show was saying. But now, of course, it’s part of the culture, it’s enshrined. And so I think people were looking for us to be a little more tame and benign, but that has never been our show,” Nixon continued. “If you think that ‘Sex in the City’ is a show that’s really about footloose and fancy-free women shopping and having sex, I mean…” Nixon concluded, “If I could do anything differently, I would have made sure we said to people in letters 10 feet tall: This is not ‘Sex and the City.’ If you’re looking for ‘Sex and the City,’ you should watch the reruns. This is a new show for this moment, and for the moment in these original characters’ lives.”
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